


portrait of a family

by jasondean



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Gen, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz im sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:09:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9407009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasondean/pseuds/jasondean
Summary: Snapshot. Title: Tight-Knit Family. Pictured: Seven no-longer lonely people.





	

_Snapshot. Title: Love is Blind. Pictured: A man, sans shirt, caught mid-laugh, hair messy and face tired. His eyes are lit up._

He never meant to take it this far. Marvin isn't the type Whizzer usually goes for. Though his taste is, admittedly, older men, he loves style and pizzazz. Men who can sweep him off his feet, men who pay at five-star restaurants, men who dress sharp, men who are well-spoken, men who are sexy. Men who aren't Marvin.

Marvin is more or less the aged version of the boys Whizzer fantasized about in high school. That is, to say, the quarterbacks with Letterman jackets slung over their broad shoulders and arrogant grins despite never having gone to state. Rigidly straight men with one arm wrapped around the cheerleader's waist as they strode the halls. They're the type you always know won't amount to much more, floating off to a university for a degree they don't care for and taking and office job to support their wife and children. The type that seem content in most every way except for those sad eyes.

He doesn't do love, he's never known love, but he thinks he just might be in love with those eyes. Tired eyes on a man with a struggle inside him. Why him, why now?

Marvin sleeps beside him, one arm wrapped around his chest. Even though he holds on too hard, Whizzer can't bring himself to pry himself from his grasp. It makes him feel warm, and safe, and loved. And then he feels guilty, because Marvin has a family. A family like the kinds in picture books. 

Marvin makes it clear that when they're together, they do not exist. He takes Whizzer in his arms to forget them, as if his whisperings and the electric touch from his fingertips wipe him completely from his mind. 

He tries to understand why the most vulnerable facet of Marvin is always the man withdrawing back into the sheets, begging for him to keep these rendezvous a secret between them, them alone. 

Most of the time, Whizzer is content to this agreement, when Marvin's family is simply blurry, two-dimensional figures in the back of his mind without names and faces and feelings. But then he can't help but drink him in and let his thoughts wander, like now, when he's lulled to sleep by the end of their fucking. (They fuck, Whizzer thinks. Marvin does not love him, and he cannot love Marvin. All they are is physical, they fuck, because that's a cold, unfeeling word.) 

What is Marvin like as a father? Does he sleep in the same bed as his wife? Does his son shake him from his sleep with worries about nightmares and monsters, or is he too old for that? Do they have dinner every night at the dining table and laugh and talk? Does he drop his son on his way to work and pick up his wife's favorite meal on the way back home? Who is his wife, who is his son? Is he distant? Do they suspect?

He never had a tight-knit family. Even as a child, his father and mother worked long, odd hours to keep food on the table and barely spoke a word to him, much less expressed their love, if they had any at all. 

He enjoys how it's rough with Marvin, how it's a constant game of power and control between them. It's all new and exciting; he's never taken much to men ordering him about and making him beg, but for some reason it's different with Marvin. He likes all that, quite a lot, but he's finding himself falling for the part of the man that's left to his imagination, the doting father and husband.  _Does he even exist?_

_Snapshot. Title: Mother. Pictured: Kitchen with white tiles tinted with warm hues from the outside sunset. Profile of a woman, suited in apron, cutting carrots into small pieces with a sharp knife, suited with a look of determination. Her hair is pulled back messily and mascara clumps her eyelashes. She is beautiful._

"You should hate me."

"I know." She smiles a dry smile, maybe bitter, maybe regretful. "I've tried, I really have," she tells him, her eyes meeting his from across the kitchen counter. 

The house seems empty without Jason and Marvin. The former, at a sleepover. The latter, well, he hasn't been around for a while. But it's not a bad, lonely sort of empty, not the type that once tore through the house as what was once a well-kept secret began to come unraveled. It's no longer unbearable.

"I never really loved him, I don't think," Trina admits with a small shrug. "I mean, I cared for Marv, I really did. It was just... My father, he was so overbearing. I promised him I'd marry. So I did."

Whizzer feels like he's lived this same story, only where he went down a different path. _Settle down with a nice girl, son. It'll pass. It must pass._

"Whizzer? Can I talk to you about something?" she asks, pulling him out of his briefly wandering thoughts.

"We're talking now, aren't we?"

She smiles once more and pushes a cup of tea towards Whizzer because she's nothing if not a polite Jewish wife. He takes it from her hands that are far more worn than he would have expected, blowing the steam away before taking a small sip. He looks at her expectantly, eyebrows raised, but says nothing more.

"Mendel was saying something to me last night, about being trisexual or bisexual or something or another. What I got from it was that he's queer," she says with a humorless laugh. There's no mistaking the fear in her eyes despite her nonchalant chatter. "He's queer!" she repeats. She laughs again because it's mind-boggling, the fact that her second husband shares her first's same gaze for men.

"He's not gay," Whizzer says gently, only  because it looks to him like she might break.

"Do you think he's been with men?" she asks.

"Why don't you ask him?" he says back. 

Trina looks down at her hands, not even realizing she's been twisting and fidgeting. "I don't think I'm bothered by it, Whizzer," she says. "I just wish that this wasn't so hard for me. To adjust, I mean. I don't want to be that person, and I don't want Jason to see that person as his mother. I want him to be better than me."

She swallows hard, and Whizzer offers her his tea. She pauses before accepting, taking the cup daintily in her hands and taking a long sip, the warmth soothing. "I'm glad Jason has you, Whizzer," she admits, looking down at her distorted reflection in the tea. "I try my best, but I'm so afraid I'm messing up with... with all this."

"You're doing just fine, Trina."

She looks back up at him. "You promise?"

"Promise."

_Snapshot. Title: Father to Son. Pictured: Bearded man with a wild mess of curls throwing a line into a lake. Boy next to him is trying to prepare bait, with difficulty._ NO FISHING  _sign obscured by the two figures._

"Can you be my psychiatrist again? For just a second?"

Mendel doesn't question; he only pats the place next to him on the sofa. Jason pauses, trying to form some sort of thanks, but nothing seems to be appropriate, so he shuts his mouth and sits down, the plush cushion sinking slightly under his weight. He sits up straight, hands folded in his lap, looking much like the boy who adamantly refused any sort of therapy years ago. 

"What's up, Jason?"

He lets out a sigh, obviously not pleased with this response. "What kind of psychiatrist are you?  _What's up, Jason?_ Really?"

"I try to be friendly with my clients. It creates trust between us."

"Sounds like bullshit to me," Jason mumbles.

"Hey, watch your language," Mendel says in a way that clearly shows he's just spitting out instructions from Trina.

"Mendel, you're my psychiatrist now, not my step-dad."

He gives the boy an odd look.

"Please," Jason says, leaning back and melting into the seat. He sounds less snarky and more worried which calls Mendel's attention back to him immediately, though it never really wandered much in the first place. That's one of the things that Jason can't ever get too worked up about with Mendel; he always makes him feel like he's the only person in the room, the most important by far in a sea of lives.

"Okay," Mendel agrees, miming and pencil and paper in his hands, pretending to jot down notes.

"Can you please not do that?" Jason asks.

"Oh, uh, yeah. Of course. Go ahead."

"What if I was gay?" Jason asks, making an effort to avoid eye contact.

"That'd be okay with me, Jason," Mendel says.

"I know... It's just, what if I am?" he asks, words feeling jumbled in his mouth. 

"Are you?" 

"I don't know!" he shoots back, trying to worm his way out of the grasp of the sofa and ultimately failing. "I'm just asking, if I am. How do I know? How do I know if it's real? What if I'm just trying to copy Dad or Whizzer or something?" He lets out the whole sentence in one breath, sounding far too close to tears.

"I think you just know, Jason," Mendel replies, resting a hand on the boy's shoulder. He flinches at his touch, resisting the urge to draw away. He allows him to keep his hand there, though he tenses, grateful for the attempt that he's made, and grateful that he isn't trying to envelope him in a hug or has begun to cry or laugh. Mendel's indifference to the situation is somehow comforting, and something he would never get with Trina, Marvin, Whizzer, or even Cordelia and Charlotte.

"Why do you always have to be so cryptic?" Jason says with a sniffle, surprising both himself and Mendel by moving into his arms, clinging to his horrifically out-of-fashion and scratchy sweater. Mendel pats his back with a hand a couple of times, the movement unsure but still coming natural and comforting to him. He doesn't make much of a comment on the fact of Jason wiping his running nose and tears onto his top, thinking it best not to make Jason anymore upset than he already is.

"Thank you. I'm sorry." 

"Hey, man. Don't be sorry. I've got you," Mendel says softly. He hugs Jason and he doesn't pull away.

_Snapshot. Title: Happy Endings. Pictured: Two women embracing and kissing, their lips tugged up in smiles, faces powdered with flour._

"Hon, they'll be here any minute," Charlotte whines, watching anxiously as her girlfriend sets the table. It's not the most pretty table ever, circular and a tad too small for seven people, but it's made up with a classy maroon tablecloth with gold accents. Cordelia fusses with the cloth, tugging it every which way in an attempt to create a wrinkle-free surface, but the more she watches, the more Charlotte realizes that the end goal is impossible.

She stands by with a stack of plates in her arms, watching Cordelia until she finally straightens up and looks back. "Yes, yes, any minute," the blonde repeats, whistling as she takes the plates from Charlotte and places them around the table, taking her time to make sure they are all equal spaces apart. The doorbell rings just as Cordelia is finished putting napkins and tableware down.

Charlotte moves to get the door, glancing back once at the table. It's still a definite mess, but she decides that anyone who has a problem with that will simply have to deal. She opens the door to find Mendel, Trina, and Jason, the last of which carrying tupperware in his arms.

"You eager for some leftovers, huh?" Charlotte teases, using her hand to muss up Jason's hair. 

"Ha ha," Jason says sarcastically. "No, this is just in case Cordelia makes another inedible flop. Which she always does."

"Hey, mister, I don't have to let you into my home and eat my food, so watch it," she warns, tone playful as she steps back to allow them in. Trina and Mendel make comments about the decor of their home and Cordelia rushes over to make an obligatory comment about how much Jason has grown, the humor being that they see each other most weeks.

As soon as the Charlotte has closed the door, she's drawn back by a rap on the wood. She opens it once more, saying hello to Whizzer and Marvin. Marvin looks about the same as usual, fit with a casual button-down a size too large for him and some jeans, while Whizzer seems as though he's shown up to a job interview, wearing a navy blazer and matching pants. "Come on in," she says, taking great amusement in the stark differences between the two men.

Cordelia rounds everyone up and directs them to their seats, making apologies for the lack of nametags. ("Charlotte told me it was too much! Can you believe that?") When everyone is seated and silent, she disappears back into the kitchen and brings out her prepared dishes, which, admittedly, don't look too bad at all. 

"Come on, Charlotte, I saved you a seat next to me," she says, taking her by the hand and pulling her to the table. Charlotte laughs and allows herself to be pushed into a chair, Cordelia sitting next to her as promised, their whole family gathered around.

_Snapshot. Title: A Game. Pictured: Sickly man in a hospital bed and boy playing chess. Image is slightly blurred and tilted, unprofessionally, but still adding character to the gloomy, dull room._

"Don't let me win, Jason," Whizzer says, chuckling a bit before erupting into a fit of coughs.

The boy watches him fearfully, as if he's afraid just a cough will snuff the life from him forever. He holds a knight in his hands, squeezing it tight until finally, the coughing dies down. He then places it back on the board, eyes flickering back to the husk of a man before him.

"I'm not letting you win. You've just gotten better at this."

Whizzer doesn't look anything like the healthy man he once knew. Only a couple of months and it seems that the old Whizzer is gone, replaced by this sickly, gaunt man dressed in hospital gowns at all times and stuck to bed for the better part of his time. He's still retained his inability to win at chess, though.

"Bullshit," Whizzer hums, pushing the pieces off of the board.

"Hey!" Jason complains.

"I told you not to let me win, and you lied to me about it," he says matter-of-factly, though he's unable to mask the hurt in his eyes. "Just because I'm dying doesn't mean you let me win."

"You aren't dying," Jason mumbles, moving to the ground to pick up the chess pieces. The tile is cold on his hands and in some places sticky.

"I am."

He returns with a handful of pieces and drops them before Whizzer on the board, all tumbling out of his hands. A sour look has pulled itself over his face, mixed with the all-too-familiar expression of fear and hopelessness.

"Dad says you aren't," Jason replies. 

"Your dad is fucking stupid," he yawns, letting his arm rest over the side of his bed. He grabs Jason's hand, pulling it to him. Jason gives it a squeeze, which Whizzer returns, though he can barely even feel the pressure, attribute to his weakened state. "Anyone can see I'm dying. You just don't want to believe it."

Jason glares down at Whizzer, frustration rising in his throat and hot tears welling in his eyes. "Is that so bad? That I don't want to believe it?" he scoffs, tears trailing down his round cheeks.

He is silent, watching the boy try to swallow his angry despair. After a few moments, he smiles. 

"What?" Jason asks, cheeks hot.

"You look just like your father right now," Whizzer laughs. It's genuine, something like nostalgia in his gaze. Foggy, like he's already gone.


End file.
